The Chimney Sweeper's Boy

by Barbara Vine

  “Perhaps she didn’t want to probe.”

  “No, it wasn’t that. She didn’t care. She was thinking about something else.”

  “It’s made you unhappy?”

  “No,” she said, “not at all. Because when I got here, you were here, and that was wonderful for me. It made me forget her. I forgot all about it till now.”

  He had been there, waiting. He had put his arms around her and kissed her as if they had known each other for years. Yet there was none of the custom and indifference of years. They had a late supper in the hotel and drank a lot of wine and he took her up to her room and kissed her again. And the next day, she went to the shop with him and looked at his books, saw Wrightson and Pallinter and Arthur first editions among his books, and these brought her a strange feeling that was a combination of familiarity and extreme distance. There was no Gerald Candless among them, and he said that at present he hadn’t a single copy in stock.

  Lunch was in the restaurant next door and in the afternoon, which was fine and unseasonably warm, they went for a walk in Victoria Park. She had barely heard of Victoria Park and hadn’t known where it was. He had grown up near there at Hackney Wick and kept a sentimental affection for this park, which was the biggest in London but which people shuddered at for its location between Homerton and Old Ford. He laughed at her when she said she had never been on a London bus and he said that in that case, they would go on one.

  The grass in the park was a true emerald green and the scattered lakes looked a clear blue on this fine day. He took her arm and hooked it into his—and that, too, was something new for her, to walk arm in arm with a man. But she didn’t tell him so, for he was already making her feel, by introducing her to these simple and ordinary pleasures, that up to now, she had hardly lived at all.

  He lived on two floors over the shop and there he cooked their dinner. No more restaurants, not that night. Later, she couldn’t have said who made the first move, for there had been moves all evening—her hand suddenly clasped and held, his arm around her waist, laughter between them, so that she spontaneously turned and hugged him. A light kiss and then another, and that one changing its character and deepening into a conjunction, a special kind of sexual act. By the time they went into the bedroom and into his bed, they had already made love, quite naturally and easily and as if from long-established habit. Nothing like those early couplings with Gerald or the excitement of the weekly renewed adventure with Edward Akenham.

  But the second time, in the early hours, was quite different, and afterward as they held each other and she was still amazed and wondering, it no longer occurred to her to make comparisons.

  “Nan asked him to come and stand outside the church when she got married,” said Jason. “For luck. She’d forgotten, but the photo brought it back.”

  “She did what?”

  “It was lucky for a bride to see a sweep on her wedding day, and sweeps earned a bit extra by appearing at weddings. They got paid for it. She’d liked this guy Ryan for some reason, so when she got married, she asked him. Great-granddad gave him five shillings—that’s twenty-five pee, but it was a lot then. And Nan had met his wife and his kids—well, she’d seen his kids. His wife came over to say she was sorry about the boy dying, and her kids were with her. Left out in the street.”

  Sarah felt a thrill touch her spine, like a cold finger running down the vertebrae, tapping each bone. One of those children had been her father. The chimney sweep’s boy.

  “How long was that after the little boy died? Her wedding, I mean.”

  “About six years. She was nineteen. But now comes something that’ll interest you. He died, that sweep, that J. W. Ryan. The following year. Nan remembers now. Her mother told her. He died of tuberculosis, or maybe it wasn’t that; maybe it was some disease you get from inhaling soot. And the family moved away.”

  The shiver touched her again. “Jason, it’s in A Messenger of the Gods. You haven’t read that, have you? It’s the novel where the father dies of silicosis and the mother’s left to bring up this family. And it’s in Eye in the Eclipse, too. They’re taken in by an uncle, the father’s brother. He lives in London; he’s a widower. How many children did the Ryans have?”

  “Nan saw three that day, but she says there were more. Five or six.”

  “Jason, I love you. I really love you. You’re a marvel. Your check’s in the post. You’re going to find out where they went and what happened to them, aren’t you?”

  Their conversation restored her excitement at the prospect of her book. She imagined herself writing the moving story of the Ryan family, their undoubted poverty, the father’s premature death. Perhaps she would need to put in some research into chimney sweeping. A short history of chimney sweeping would have its place in maybe chapter two. That kind of research was what gave her pleasure, not all this tracing of births and deaths in registers, but a genuine investigation in libraries, a trawling through old works of literature, a returning through the distant past to sources.

  To match this history with the theme of Eye in the Eclipse would give an added literary dimension to her memoirs, something she thought her readers would expect from her. And, of course, she would use also in that first chapter, perhaps even as her opening paragraph, Gerald Candless’s own happier version of The Water Babies, which he used to tell to her and Hope when they were little.

  “Once upon a time, there was a chimney sweep who had two sons.…”

  20

  Insensitive people are powerful and the thoroughly thick-skinned are the most powerful. They make the best tyrants.

  —HALF AN HOUR IN THE STREET

  SARAH LET HERSELF IN TO LUNDY VIEW HOUSE AT TEN ON FRIDAY NIGHT. Ursula came out to her, came into the hall, and, emboldened by recent demonstrativeness, put out her hands tentatively. Sarah gave her a very practical but very light kiss on the cheek.

  “How have you been?”

  Ursula might have said she hadn’t been there very much. She might have said that while she had been there, she had gone so far as to look in at the windows of two estate agents without actually going inside. But a habit of wariness is hard to break. With a glass of whiskey beside her, Sarah settled herself in an armchair. The paperback that lay open and facedown on a small table beside “Daddy’s chair” was evidence that she had been sitting there before Sarah arrived.

  “You’re reading Titus Romney,” Sarah said.

  “Yes. It’s rather good.”

  “Ma, have you thought any more about what Hope and I told you about Dad?”

  “About his changing his name, do you mean?”

  “Not just his name. His identity. His whole life.”

  “I can’t see much point in my thinking about it, Sarah. I didn’t know about it. If it happened, it was before we met.”

  “That’s all very well, but it’s your name, too, you know.”

  Ursula sighed. It was one of those sighs that often precede “speaking out.” “Not any longer. I am reverting to my maiden name. I’m calling myself Ursula Wick.”

  Sarah was shocked. “But why?”

  “As you said yourself, it wasn’t really his name, so I’m under no obligation to go on using it myself. He took it. I am dropping it.” That wasn’t the real reason, but it would do. She said, “I think I might have a drink, too.”

  “I’ll get it for you.”

  This was an offer Ursula couldn’t remember either of her daughters ever making to her before. Sarah had remembered, too, that she drank only white wine and had poured her a glass from the fridge.

  “Ma, does the name Ryan mean anything to you?”

  “I don’t think so. It’s an Irish name and quite common, I would say. Why?”

  “I wondered if Dad had ever mentioned the name or ever wrote to a Ryan or had letters from a Ryan.”

  “I’m sure not, Sarah. Why?”

  Sarah told her. Trying to look interested, Ursula found herself rather repelled, unwilling to know.

  “The
family moved to London in 1939,” Sarah said.

  “The year the war started. Most people would have moved away from London if they could have.”

  “They couldn’t. They were poor. Ryan’s widow had this offer from a relative and she took it; I suppose she didn’t have a choice. Anyway, I think they went to London a few months before the war. It started in September, didn’t it? They may have gone in the summer. After the sweep died, Ryan, Dad’s father.”

  “If he was his father.”

  “Oh, I think he was. Because of the book and the story he used to tell us. If anything about a Ryan comes back to you, you’ll tell me, won’t you?”

  Instead of the pub, they were meeting in Greens, and the meeting time was later, nine o’clock. According to their unexpressed rule, she was prevented from speaking to Adam Foley, so she was quite unprepared for what happened. On her arrival, she went straight to the ladies’ room and was joined there after two or three minutes by Rosie. During those minutes, Sarah made adjustments to her appearance she wouldn’t normally have thought of: put more gel on her artfully tangled hair, painted her mouth a richer, darker red, and pulled in her stomach as hard as she could so that the waistband of her black leather trousers fitted more smoothly.

  In some doubt about it, she had taken off the black velvet choker with the gold spikes and, having second thoughts, was putting it back on again when Rosie came in. Rosie looked over her shoulder, waited till the door closed, and said she was delighted to see her, had thought that after what had happened last time, she wouldn’t come, but that she need not worry, because Adam Foley wouldn’t be there. That was the point of meeting at Greens. He didn’t know—no one had told him—so Sarah could relax and enjoy herself.

  Wild thoughts of going to the pub ran through Sarah’s mind, to be almost immediately driven out again. They had gone too far last time; they should have realized. She wondered how she was going to get through the evening.

  Upstairs, in the small stuffy room, dimly lit as an American bar and smelling of air freshener with an undertone of cannabis, Tyger told her in a confidential tone that they had all been disgusted by Adam Foley’s behavior. Alexander said he had been offended and even more appalled that he had refused to apologize. With an air of someone imparting a piece of entirely original information, Vicky said that Adam Foley was the rudest guy she had met in all her life.

  They went on like that for some time. Sarah wondered if it would have helped if one of them had told her beforehand that Adam didn’t know the change of venue. But what could she have done about it if they had? It then occurred to her that she would have to take some care, a moderate amount of care, as to how much she drank, because she would have to drive home at midnight instead of the next morning. And what she now wanted was to get very drunk indeed.

  There was some dancing and a female impersonator—Rosie swore it was a woman impersonating a man impersonating a woman—came on and told transvestite jokes. Sarah was casting caution aside and drinking one of the club’s champagne cocktails when Adam Foley came down the steps and walked up to their table. It was a cold night and he was wearing a greatcoat that reached almost to his feet.

  He said, to Sarah’s consternation, “I’ve come to apologize.”

  There was an expectant and somewhat excited silence.

  “I’m sorry. I apologize. I bitterly regret my behavior. Will you forgive me?” He didn’t wait for her to speak. “That’s all right, then. Scene over. Fight unnecessary. Now can I sit down and have a drink?”

  No one said anything. Adam Foley took a glass and helped himself from the red wine on the table. Sarah, who had long abandoned her evening as a waste of time, now felt herself beginning to tremble. His presence—he had sat down next to her—made her feel almost faint. The silence was broken by Alexander’s asking if anyone wanted to eat. Either at the Scarlet Angel or a curry house somewhere.

  This led to a discussion of food and eating places. Adam Foley turned his back on Sarah. She had been sitting next to one of the cuboid Art Deco pillars that held up, or appeared to hold up, the black-and-gilt ceiling, and by moving as he had, still inside his voluminous big-shouldered coat, he managed to force her back into an alcove and exclude her from the company.

  Her position was made worse by his sliding his chair back so that it pressed against her knees. She was actually squashed against the wall, in a certain amount of pain. For a while, she didn’t know what to do. And no one else—from what she could see of them—seemed to have noticed. That she had no idea what particular game he was playing this evening added to her excitement, but all that would be lost if she was actually made ridiculous. If she was squeezed out of her corner onto the floor or forced to call for help. If he crushed her so that she was physically injured.

  Then he stood up. The coat swept against her face, a thick muffling mass of tweed. She let out a cry and pushed at him. He stepped aside, looked at her, and said, “Good God, how long have you been there?”

  As if he had been totally unaware of her. As if she were insignificant, not a woman, not a human being, of no account. He had spoken to her as if she were someone’s small dog trapped behind a sofa. And for an instant, she doubted. It was as if all that had been between them and all they had done had never been done. But only for an instant. Still, she couldn’t answer him; he had deprived her of her powers of repartee.

  They were going off to eat somewhere. Or some of them were. She heard him say, and her heart seemed to revolve, return to its place with a bump, “Curry it is, then.”

  At the foot of the stairs, he stepped back to let Rosie and Vicky pass ahead of him and then walked on up, leaving her to follow. Her throat was dry and blocked at the same time. On the back of his coat, at about waist level, her mouth had left a dark red blurred imprint. She asked herself then what she had never before asked: why she liked this, why it excited her so much, and why did the doubt add to her excitement. If she had been drunk, she was no longer, but she still walked slowly, dragging herself up the stairs.

  The street door swung back. She had to put up her hands to keep it from striking her in the face and she heard the doorman or bouncer or whatever he was mutter something like “That’s a right bastard.”

  Out in the street, they were gone, all of them. She imagined him telling them she’d said to say good-bye for her, that she’d gone home. Bitterly, she thought that by now they must be used to her leaving early and chagrined perhaps that for once he wasn’t. The car park was dark, almost empty of cars, a great pool of oil lying in the middle of the asphalt. She skirted around it, looked for her car, then saw a single point of red light.

  It was his cigarette. He was sitting on the rear fender, and when she came up, shaking and speechless, he took the cigarette from his mouth and with thumb and forefinger put it into hers with a lingering touch.

  At nearly thirty-two, which was young for this to happen, Sarah saw in herself signs of developing eccentricity. Of her curious relationship with Adam Foley, she preferred not to think, for thinking would, if not spoil it, interfere with its remote and emotionless nature. But that decision in itself was an eccentricity, as the relationship was. Another was her growing dislike of admitting anyone else into her home. She had asked her mother to stay, both immediately after her father died and more recently, but her relief at her invitation’s being refused was disproportionate. After each refusal, she had come home and luxuriated in her solitude, drinking too much and falling asleep fully clothed on the hearth rug.

  Ideally, she understood herself to feel, she would never let anyone else in here ever again. That went for Hope and Fabian, too, she discovered to her surprise. She amused herself for a while thinking of things she could do that would make it impossible for people to be invited here. These were few, but they included displaying hard pornography on the walls, never cleaning the place, and taking all her clothes off the moment she got in the door.

  None of it was possible this evening because Jason Thague was coming. Sa
rah groaned at the thought of it, adding making faces in the mirror to that other bizarre but quite frequent habit of hers—talking aloud to herself. He was coming because he was in London on her business and had invited him-self as a matter of course. Why not? It could be done on the phone and it could be done by letter, but why not face-to-face, since she lived in London? He had phoned her at college just as she was off to give her Wednesday-morning tutorial—and what could she say but yes? He probably didn’t notice how grudging a yes it was.

  He couldn’t help his acne scars or his clothes or, come to that, his accent, but he could have washed himself and washed his hair. The ancient Colin Wrightson had told her some months before in a burst of self-pity that along with arthritis and a diminution of hearing, he had lost his sense of smell. Sarah felt this wouldn’t be such a bad deprivation when Jason came into her flat. Her own sense of smell was acute. It registered an earthiness about his clothes and a staleness coming from his skin and hair.

  She offered him a drink and sat a long way away. He had been most of the day at St. Catherine’s House, checking on the Ryan family, and had found them, had found all the children born to John William and Anne Elizabeth Ryan and followed the history of some of them. Noticing that he drank his drink rapidly and somehow furtively, as if he was afraid someone else might get to it first, she offered him another. He shook his head.

  “My nan keeps brandy for medicinal purposes,” he said. “I try to faint sometimes.” She didn’t smile. “It’s a long time since I tasted gin. I don’t want to get carried away. Can I get myself some water?”

  “I’ll get it.” She fetched Perrier from the fridge. “Tell me about the Ryans.”

  “They were married in 1925. In Ipswich. Her name was O’Drida. The first child was John Charles, born April twentieth, 1926.”