by Louis Bayard
Pairing off, they proceed to carry the boxes to the waiting waggon. The footing is slippery, but the work is quick and methodical, and scarcely a sound escapes from either the men or their cargo. For all anyone might say else, these really are pedestals from Ostend.
From my chimney perch, I see Miss Binny rap twice on the custom-house door. And then, after a yawning interval, the door swings open, and into the courtyard strides Lord Frederick Griffyn.
In his raglan-sleeved Inverness cape and his resplendent square-toed button boots…the rose-gold ring squeezed defiantly onto his finger…he is the model of gentility under pressure. With a dreamy half grin, he steps into the center of the courtyard, careful not to meet anyone’s eye, almost bashful as each eye turns to meet his. He points to the rearmost box, which has yet to be placed in the waggon, and in a softly inflected voice, says:
—That one.
The two men tasked with carrying the box lower it slowly to the ground. They look at each other, then at Rebbeck.
Still pointing, His Lordship says:
—Open it, if you please.
But the two men are too baffled to carry out the command, and so it falls to Rebbeck to stride forward, undo the latch, and pry open the lid.
By my side, I see Philomela shrink away, cast her eyes eastward. But Colin and I, in spite of ourselves, cannot help but look.
Even with our bird’s-eye view, though, we see at first only inky absence, until Lord Griffyn, availing himself of Miss Binny’s lantern, steps forward and, sweeping his arm round, bathes the box in an umber light. And now everything is plain to behold.
A small girl with long, limp, whitish hair and an even whiter face. She is pale enough to qualify as a corpse, but the lantern light has already pricked her eyes open, and as the night aromas rush in, she unleashes a huge wave of air, as if she had been holding her breath all the way from Belgium. She raises her head and then, under the combined scrutiny of all these onlookers, lowers it again, and as she sinks back, I can hear the faint echo of bilge water splashing against the box’s inner walls.
Followed by another, even fainter echo: Colin’s awestruck whisper.
—Holy Christ….
Griffyn is now standing directly above the box, peeling off his gloves. With his right hand, he reaches down to caress the girl’s cold, ashen face. Then, obscurely satisfied, he snaps his fingers twice. The men gather round once again, and in the ensuing flurry, we catch a glimpse of that small flaxen head, turned all the way to one side, as though it might press itself into the wood’s grain. And then the perforated lid is once again shut, and the box is hoisted onto the waggon bed, squeezed into the niche left by its mates.
Griffyn carefully tugs each finger of his glove back into place, then turns a smile of raffish charm on his staff.
—My friends, now is the time for words, but my tongue falls numb before its task. I can only tender you my warmest, deepest admiration for the labour you have effected, and in the same breath, bid you adieu. For I am called elsewhere by unavoidable affairs. Les affaires du coeur et de la loi….
A brief smattering of applause from Miss Binny, to which Griffyn lowers his head before shifting his attention towards the river.
—What a charming little vessel you have procured, Rebbeck! All it needs, I believe, is a Spanish guitar, softly strumming.
—We hope it will turn the trick, your lordship.
—I daresay there is no trick you can’t turn, Rebbeck. You will wire me, of course, as the money comes?
—Yes, your lordship.
—And that other business…
With this, they relapse into a private conversation that concludes a minute later with Griffyn’s clapping Rebbeck on the shoulder and crying:
—The very thing! Now, if these strapping young men could proffer me service as gondoliers? Excellent. Let us be off, then.
And so the moment I have been imagining now stands inaugurated. The moment in which my resolve will be put to its final proof.
But what is this proof? What is this resolve? There the imagination falls short, leaves off with dim possibilities, and each of the possibilities falls away in turn until at last there is just one, only slightly less dim, and only slightly more possible, than the rest.
—Colin.
—Yes?
—I’m afraid I’ll require a bit of time. Do you think you might provide some sort of distraction?
—What sort?
—I don’t know. Running about or…or making a commotion, that kind of thing. Anything you like, so long as you don’t get yourself caught.
—How much time you wantin’?
—As much as you can supply. Just don’t let them take you. If it’s a question of distracting them or…or escaping, then by all means choose the latter.
He turns away a little as he considers my request. That request considered, he tenders me a slow, hard nod.
—Many thanks. And now…Philomela?
She looks up at me, tense with expectation.
—Here is what I need you to do. Go back to the boat and find the lantern. The lantern, yes? I want you to stand by the boat, in full view of the river, and make a signal, do you understand?
—Signal.
—So that the police will know where to find us. You must swing it in a large arc, very rhythmically. Like this.
—Yes.
—And mind you—this applies to you, too, Colin—once you’re done, neither of you need come back. You may deem your work complete.
They both look at me for a moment. Then Colin says, as gently as he can:
—Fuck off.
It is the last thing he says. Before I can make any reply, he and Philomela have dropped out of sight—reducing themselves to nothing more than soft rustling sounds beneath my feet.
Back in the courtyard, the preparations for his lordship’s departure are nearly complete. Griffyn’s portmanteau has been procured and tucked away in the boat, the gondoliers are stationed, and now Griffyn himself, swinging his cape in the snow, strolls towards the dock with Rebbeck on one side and the good missionary commanding the other. Miss Binny chats in the flat, equable fashion of a passenger in a railway terminus, but Griffyn’s voice rises above hers with no discernible effort.
—All the same, my good woman, what a crime. Not to be in London when Christmas comes round! Heigh-ho, we are pawns of the gods. And dare I suggest it? There is always next year.
To which Miss Binny offers the wheedling response:
—Indeed, my lord, there is. Always next year. And the year after as well.
More banalities, I’m sure, are queued up on her tongue waiting to be disgorged, but they will have to wait just now, for the air, at this moment, is rent by a loud cry to stern.
—Halloo!
It is Colin’s voice, it could be no other. And yet it carries such an aged note of conviviality I scarcely recognise it.
The effect it produces, though, on the occupants of the courtyard is anything but convivial. To a man and woman, they fall silent, stiffening from boot to hat.
The first to break his pose is Rebbeck. He takes a few steps in the general direction of the sound, trying to scope out its origins. But when the voice comes again, it comes from a slightly different quarter—thirty yards farther south.
—Someone this way comes!
Rebbeck gives a signal to one of the men, who runs off at once, skirting round the dislodged section of roof without an upward look, then pressing on southward towards a dilapidated tenement.
But the voice, on its next pass, sounds clearly to the east.
—This way, officers!
In the distance, the man’s body freezes at the news. Then he turns and skips round a pile of rubble, disappearing behind a teetering gallery.
That makes one gone. And there is this additional benefit: Colin’s noisemaking has produced answering sounds. The yowling of a cat. An aborted cry of protest from a neighbouring squatter. The shiver of a rotten window frame. Life is beg
inning to stir in these dead precincts.
But in the courtyard, all remains quiet. The gondoliers sit frozen in their boat; Griffyn and Miss Binny stand arrested at the water’s edge. Only Rebbeck displays any inclination to move. His nostrils dilate, his fingers waggle…and then comes another cry, from along the river’s edge, and he is on the move, limping his way round the custom house and vanishing into the distance.
No difficulty now for me to climb down to earth. No difficulty to creep round the house and peer into the courtyard. And from here, the signs look propitious indeed—but for one thing. The last of Griffyn’s men still keeps sentry by the waggon.
Half a minute passes, another half minute; the ties of despair are just beginning to steal round me when, from some western precinct, Colin’s voice once more sounds out.
—London Bridge is broken down!
Not even sung—intoned, like the Nicene Creed. And yet that refrain is just the thing to draw my sentry from his post. Half apprehensive, half enraged, he edges towards the sound, then follows it across the stones and around the inlet. He is following it still when I take my first step into the courtyard.
I will say this, I am quiet as a body can be, creeping towards the waggon, lifting myself onto its bed. It is, in fact, that very stealth that allows me to hear, for the first time, the sounds these boxes do make through their perforated lids: tiny scuffles and burbles and squelches and, beneath everything else, a low, humming plaint. The pedestals have come to life.
As I have no lantern, I must fumble for some time before locating the latch on the first box. Once found, it clicks right open, and after I have made a cursory check of the surroundings and muttered a brief, virtually wordless prayer, I nod to myself and raise the lid.
—Go! Free! Go!
I whisper it as loudly as I dare, and then I move on to the next box…and the next one…opening each in turn and confronting, each time, the same prospect: a still-living body with a blanched, dead face, fast-blinking eyes and inert lips.
So here I am, a would-be saviour on Christmas Eve, trying to raise the dead, but they won’t be raised. Every girl remains a slave to her condition, wrapped in fast invisible cords. I find myself wanting almost to pound them—hammer them into life—but I have not time or strength enough. I have only…
My hand closes round the hard cold surface of George’s revolver.
And through my head flashes the impertinent question: How difficult can it be?
Not so very. Not so very difficult. Cock the hammer. Raise the barrel straight to the sky. Curl the finger round the trigger and set to squeezing.
And still something in me resists. Until I hear Rebbeck’s distant cry:
—Got him!
Colin. They’ve found Colin.
And that knowledge is all the incentive I need. I press tighter, tighter…and then…
Crack!
And at that moment, I could swear the charge passes not from the barrel but through my body—up my arm, out my head, straight to the stars. The air sings in my ear, and the whole world is aroar.
Of all the reactions I expected to elicit, the one I never really anticipated was the horse’s. The poor beast, stung by the blast, lurches forwards about fifteen feet, knocking me flat on my stomach and pitching the boxes against one another like matchsticks. There is a cacophony of squeals as the girls fight to disengage themselves. One is carried straight off the waggon—her box splits clear down the middle and spits her out through the fissure.
I can see this girl now, staggering to her feet, all bloody fingers and sopping rags. I can see the other girls pushing themselves up in their boxes, beginning the arduous work of reorienting themselves.
And to my right, I can see the dark figure of Lord Griffyn, turning towards the waggon…and next to him, the slowly expanding cavity of Miss Binny’s mouth.
This cavity becomes a source of unspeakable satisfaction to me as I brace myself against the waggon’s side and discharge the second bullet, straight to the sky.
And instead of bolting this time, the horse, whinnying in terror, drops its back and rears its forelegs into the air. The back of the waggon tips almost to the ground, and in due process, each box comes sliding off, spilling out a new girl with each landing.
In the near distance, I can hear the sounds of running feet converging on us, but for now, the spectacle of these girls is preeminent. They are all of them screaming—at an unimaginable pitch and volume—and this noise has somehow become the vehicle of their liberation, the galvanic impulse that explodes them from their boxes and goads them to their feet and sends them flying. Their screams merge into a great echoing chord, so that the very heavens rock with the sound.
Only in Bedlam, I think, could one find such a frenzy of movement with no discernible purpose. Maddened by liberty, the girls rush in whatever direction possesses them, and woe to the object that gets in their way. Griffyn is transformed into a whirling dervish by one bundle of rags. Miss Binny is fairly flattened by two girls as she tries to waylay them. Demonic in their power, they push straight up and over her, leaving her stunned and heaving in their wake.
One girl flings herself straight into the nearest water, as if she were on fire. Two others heave themselves at the boat, tackling the astonished gondoliers and capsizing the vessel in a single stroke. Far from sinking in this new medium, the girls take to it like otters, kicking up great cataracts as the flailing boatmen disappear in columns of slime.
I watch…oh, I watch it all with an ill-concealed triumph. Behold my work! So it is that I am actually cackling when the men barrel into the courtyard—Rebbeck bringing up the rear and dragging Colin after him. Their faces slacken with amazement; their limbs jerk in all directions. Instinct tells them to pursue, but which girl are they to pursue? The one who has just dashed down the foreshore? Or the one who has yanked open the custom-house door and is even now bounding up the stairs and shouting through the walls? Or the one who, in a flight of ambition, has set herself the task of scaling the nearby mill?
Into this sea of chaos Rebbeck’s two men, with no small trepidation, wade, while Rebbeck contents himself with dragging Colin towards the custom house. Before he can make it, though, a bellowing girl streaks past him like a comet—just the distraction Colin needs to clamp his teeth round his captor’s arm. Stung, Rebbeck whips away the injured limb and raises the other for an answering blow. But Colin has already darted out of range and is running straight into the heart of Bermondsey. Within seconds, he has vanished into the darkness—nothing but a line of footprints in the snow.
Rebbeck makes a show of chasing him, limping across the courtyard and skidding into a slick of ice before coming to a quick halt. I see him there, silently weighing the possibilities. Then he turns round and sketches a path along the dilapidated house-front, pausing first to survey the wreckage of boxes…and then looking straight up at the grinning figure of young Tim in the waggon bed.
He waits.
The waiting is a bit of a surprise. I had fully expected him to charge. But then I look down and see the revolver still clutched in my hand. Marvelous toy! Why, with this magical pistol, I will rule the world, that’s what I’ll do!
And to seal the pact, I raise the pistol for yet a third time. And once again…oh, silly Tim…silly, silly Tim…once again I fire.
And this time, the nerve-shattered horse bolts for good—no stopping it now—and this time, I am not braced. The pistol pops from my hand, and the waggon slides from under me, and I am sailing through the air, straight to earth—a thump of bone on stone-cold ground.
My ears ring with the sound of hooves, and I am thinking this must be the natural end of all petty tyrants—to be hurled into the muck and mire—and that is the end of thinking, for now Rebbeck is upon me, and we are rolling through the courtyard, gouging ourselves against the stones, and Rebbeck’s fingers are pressed against my windpipe, and mine are pressed against the closed lids of his eyes, and who’s to say which of us will give way first?
>
But the first thing to yield is the custom house. Which is to say, we roll right into that crumbling hovel, and it is the building itself that shakes—shakes to its very foundation.
The force is enough, at any rate, to jar Rebbeck’s fingers from my throat. I jump to my feet, panting hard, and when he leaps up to face me, I hook my right foot round the back of his leg (a trick Peter showed me when I was eight years old—eight years old, and still dreaming of being able to perform such a trick), I give a tug, and down goes Rebbeck in a satisfying heap.
Why then…why does the pain come shooting through my leg? The old traitorous knee—Christ alive!
I make to run, but Rebbeck’s leg is not so bad as mine, is it? Oh, he finds it the easiest of sports to catch up with the likes of me and thrust me back against the house. And when I start to press back, it takes only a quick pop to my solar plexus to take the fight out of me. Nauseous, tasting blood, I stand pinned in place, every last atom of resistance concentrated in my outstretched left arm.
For against that arm is pitted Rebbeck’s own blunt appendage…and, to make the contest even less equal, the wood-carver’s blade—redolent with history, garishly present.
It is this blade that advances, by the slightest of fractions, towards my naked throat, and I am conscious now not of Rebbeck’s face, which has disappeared in a haze of snow, but of his voice, which has lightened into something queerly paternal.
—Here comes a candle to light you to bed….
Another knee in the abdomen. From my mouth, a tiny rill of blood spills forth; every fibre in my body quivers with pain; and still some involuntary impulse keeps my arm in place, holds the blade at bay.
And still it closes in…nearer and nearer it draws…and all the while, Rebbeck is crooning in my ear.
